MONDAY, 6.30PM:
THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange took a hammering on Monday, following the precipitous drop of the rand in after-hours trading on Friday as foreign investors got the jitters on rumours that the rand is to be devalued by the Reserve Bank.
The market seems to be led principally by the rand, the repo rate — which is climbing — and is waiting on inflation data, say traders.
The all gold index dropped 18 points to 1010, the financial index plummeted to 13701 from 13931 and the industrial index dropped 158 points to 9872. The all share index totted up the damage, dropped 141 to 8099.
Bonds weakened on Monday, but were bolstered by a small recovery by the rand to below R5,14 a dollar from 5,1570. Trading was range-bound, between 13,55% and 13,44% on the R150 bond.
The average repo rate climbed further to 16,094% from Friday’s 15,799%. The shortfall between R5,5-billion from Friday’s R9,4-billion.
The yield on the R150 was 13,485% from Friday’s 13,200%, and 13,710% on the R153 from R13,440%.
After dropping to R5,1725, the rand recovered on exporter dollars.
The rand closed at R5,1390 to the dollar, from R15,1516, and at R8,3047 to the pound from R8,3183.
Gold closed at $299,75 an ounce from Friday’s $299.